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32,123 public-domain books, summarised. Page 508 of 670.

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Part 1
Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant
An unvarnished, self-effacing account of personal life and military command reveals how a quiet Midwestern boy was unexpectedly shaped into a formidable battlefield general.

Pirate Gold
Frederic Jesup Stimson
A dark canvas bag of unclaimed gold pieces, handed over by a captured pirate on a Boston wharf, shapes the quiet destiny of a devoted bank clerk and the orphan child he swears to protect.

Popular Amusements
J. T. (Jonathan Townley) Crane
A stern yet deeply affectionate warning to a restless generation, this guide weighs worldly pastimes against the quiet demands of Christian integrity.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 156, Jan. 15, 1919
Various
The end of the First World War brings a sudden rush of relief and absurdity to London's streets and military dugouts.

Quisanté
Anthony Hope
An ambitious woman marries a brilliant, unprincipled politician, only to find that even death cannot free her from his spell.

Rambles in Australia
Edwin Sharpe Grew
A vast, sun-drenched continent yields its secrets to two perceptive travelers who observe its bustling ports, deep wilderness, and warm-hearted people with equal measures of curiosity, critical intelligence, and affectionate grace.

Report on the lands of the arid region of the United States, with a more detailed account of the lands of Utah
John Wesley Powell
A dry landscape demands new ways of living, yet American laws continue to treat the arid West as if it were a rain-drenched eastern forest.

Roger Trewinion
Joseph Hocking
A grim coastal landscape, an ancestral curse, and a family torn apart by deception frame this classic Cornish melodrama.

Sand dunes story
Donna P. (Donna Paul) Bessken
The Death Valley sand dunes are not merely piles of lifeless sand; they are a complex, shifting ecosystem defined by the interplay of wind, geology, and resilient desert life.

Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846: The Advocate of Industry and Journal of Scientific
Various
Mechanical ingenuity and civic ambition march together in an era of rapid American industrial expansion.

Soap-bubble stories
Fanny Barry
Lit by firelight while snow falls outside, these tales carry a quiet magic that makes ordinary objects and odd little creatures feel fully alive.

Something about Eve: A comedy of fig-leaves
James Branch Cabell
A young man abandons his mundane life to pursue a legendary kingdom, only to discover that the truest destination is the bittersweet architecture of his own imagination.

Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa: A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley into the Heart of the Dark Continent
Joel Tyler Headley
A single man marches into unmapped forests, braving starvation, fever, and hostile arrows to redrawn the map of a continent.

Stories of the East
Leonard Woolf
Behind the polished veneer of imperial administration lies a quiet, unsparing examination of human delusion, cultural friction, and the fragile illusions that men construct to survive in unfamiliar worlds.

Subspeciation in the Kangaroo Rat, Dipodomys ordii: KU. Vol 1 No 23
Henry W. Setzer
An exhaustive survey of North America’s most widespread kangaroo rat reveals how shifting landscapes and physical isolation shape the origin of species.

Tales of Three Hemispheres
Lord Dunsany
A dreamer slips across the fragile border between our world and the realm of myth, where timeless rivers flow past immortal cities and the gods themselves fall asleep.

The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel
Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess
A frantic, chattering squirrel makes a hairbreadth escape, lands in a human house, and discovers that the terrifying world of big hands and iron cages is not as hostile as he believed.

The American Missionary
Various
Faithful service in wartime and the peaceful work of education offer the ultimate proof of equal citizenship.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 49, November, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
Framing human struggle through personal memoirs, romantic fables, military dispatches, and sharp political critique, this issue captures a nation attempting to understand its own ideals amidst impending unraveling.

The Bible, King James version, Book 43: John
Anonymous
A cosmic origin opens into an earthly life of signs, dramatic encounters, and mounting conflict, culminating in a death that transforms into unexpected presence.

The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City
Laura Lee Hope
Two pairs of small-town twins step into the rush of early twentieth-century Manhattan, discovering that a sprawling metropolis holds as much room for innocent wonder as for getting hopelessly lost.

The book of antelopes, vol. 4 (of 4)
Philip Lutley Sclater
An authoritative guide to the continent's wild bovines, blending precise physical descriptions with field accounts to classify every known species across Africa and Asia.

The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World
Margaret Vandercook
A young woman carrying three unlit silver candles down a cold hallway must decide whether to give up her family home on Thanksgiving Day.

The City of Pleasure
Arnold Bennett
Behind the dazzling lights and swelling bandstands of a colossal Victorian pleasure park, two wildly different men play a high-stakes game of greed, theatrical pride, and deadly revenge.

The Dawn of All
Robert Hugh Benson
A man wakes in a future where Catholic authority rules the globe, forced to navigate a world that feels both saintly and terrifyingly absolute.

The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 05
Dante Alighieri
A trembling pilgrim descends into the burning city of Dis, guided by a poet through circles where heretics burn in open tombs and tyrants boil in rivers of blood.

The Epic of Paul
William Cleaver Wilkinson
A vast, blank-verse retelling of the apostle’s later life, this narrative tracks a relentless campaign of spiritual devotion, political intrigue, and personal transformation across the ancient Mediterranean.

The Fatal Cord, and The Falcon Rover
Mayne Reid
Underneath the tangle of backwoods rivalries and high-seas treachery lies a breathlessly paced story of greed, identity, and the long reach of hidden crimes.

The Gayton Scholarship: A School Story
Herbert Hayens
A spirited British schoolboy must navigate sudden poverty, fierce academic competition, and a false accusation of theft while striving to support his family and build a honorable future.

The Ghost of Guir House
Charles Willing Beale
A young man travels to a remote Virginia estate following a misdirected letter, only to find himself entangled in an eerie world of ancient secrets, occult philosophy, and spectral encounters.

The Great Gray Plague
Raymond F. Jones
Conconformity is a dull gray fog, but a radical shake-up can clear the air.

The Great White Queen: A Tale of Treasure and Treason
William Le Queux
Traversing untamed West African forests and hidden mountain passes, two young men navigate deadly fetishes, bloodthirsty tyrants, and sweeping battles to reclaim a lost empire.

The Hand of Fu-Manchu: Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor
Sax Rohmer
A relentless enemy moves through the shadows of fog-bound London, driving a small group of allies across ancient manors, secret passages, and subterranean dens in a desperate, high-stakes battle against an international criminal conspiracy.

The Hart and the Water-Brooks: a practical exposition of the forty-second Psalm
John R. (John Ross) Macduff
A wounded deer panting for mountain streams becomes the timeless symbol for a human soul stranded in dark places. Throughverse-by-verse reflections, this classic study maps the inner path from spiritual isolation to quiet trust.

The Highwayman
H. C. (Henry Christopher) Bailey
Two cynical cynics clash, wed, and part in Queen Anne’s intrigue-ridden England before discovering the price of pride and the necessity of honest affection.

The History of the Revolutions of Portugal
abbé de Vertot
An empire’s liberty hinges on a midnight plot, where a reluctant prince is coaxed onto a throne to sever a nation from foreign bondage.

The Hunters
Joseph Samachson
When alien scout-hunters infiltrate a field trip to an American zoo, they select humanity's youngest as prime specimens—until an unexpectedly real threat forces a disgraced movie star to earn his lion-hunting reputation.

The Indian On The Trail: From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899
Mary Hartwell Catherwood
A middle-aged author falls desperately in love with a younger woman on Mackinac Island, fighting his own desperate intensity and her guarded, elusive nature beneath the shadows of the northern pines.

The Indiscretion of the Duchess: Being a Story Concerning Two Ladies, a Nobleman, and a Necklace
Anthony Hope
A young Englishman's sudden journey across Normandy entangles him in a high-stakes duel, a missing diamond necklace, and a dangerous game of love between a headstrong duchess and her rivals.

The influence and development of English gilds
Francis Aidan Hibbert
A rigorous study of English trade fraternities reveals how local municipal bodies shaped medieval economic life, fostered community responsibility, and ultimately yielded to the pressures of modern industrialization.

The Inquisition
Hoffman Nickerson
An exploration of how coercive authority emerges, this study examines the military campaign that laid the groundwork for institutionalized religious persecution in the Middle Ages.

The Iron Pincers
Eugène Sue
A innocent serf and a noble troubadour flee the decadent excess of northern courts only to find their haven engulfed by fire and sword.

The Laws of War, Affecting Commerce and Shipping
H. Byerley (Henry Byerley) Thomson
When a state enters a conflict, the sudden shift transforms everyday commerce, vessel ownership, and sea-lane passage into immediate questions of legality.

The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science: Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"
Thomas Henry Huxley
Science and religion clash over whether ancient Scriptural accounts of physical events can withstand the rigorous standards of modern historical and scientific criticism.

The Little Nugget
P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
When an over-pampered American millionaire's son becomes the most sought-after prize for competing kidnappers at a quiet English prep school, love, honor, and sudden violence collide in unexpected ways.

The Little Princess of Tower Hill
L. T. Meade
Pampered and headstrong, an aristocratic young girl discovers that true nobility lies in empathy and self-sacrifice when a brush with hardship shifts her world.

The Little Review, March 1915 (Vol. 2, No. 1)
Various
A fierce, vital snapshot of early twentieth-century American modernism captures a culture at a crossroads, where radical theatrical experiments, unyielding political critiques, and avant-garde verse collide against the darkening backdrop of global war.

The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories
B. M. Bower
An affection-tested cowboy's misadventures in love and loyalty reveal how high-spirited range hands navigate the quiet terrors of their own tender hearts.